Better than a family tree The advent of memoirs are sweeping the country

SAN DIEGO - 9.11 has affected a myriad of changes within our society. Not the least of which has been in the book market. "Out" are the celebrity tell-all books, "in" are family memoirs. A local company, Silver Threads, is working to help to preserve those precious family memories. "The entire country had a near-death experience on 9.11," says co-Founder of Silver Threads, Robert Goodman, "consequently, people are really looking to memorialize their families. Memoirs are a great way to do that."

To herald their arrival into the literary world, Silver Threads is hosting a memoir contest. The Silver Threads Memoir Contest is open to writers of unpublished literary memoirs. The winner of this contest will be considered for publication.

"The importance of memoirs is really underestimated," says co-Founder Peggy Lang. "These are the stories you can't get from history books. The way the kitchen smelled when your grandmother was baking bread or the personal stories of survival during the depression era. Memoirs aren't so much about individuals as they are about their experiences. A personal glimpse into a life that might have otherwise gone uncelebrated."

ABOUT SILVER THREADS - Silver Threads is committed to developing the craft of the literary memoir as an emerging genre. We assist others in writing and producing their own memoirs. We plan to publish those that we feel have uncommon commercial or literary merit.
Peggy Lang, the editorial director of Silver Threads, is a former English teacher with more than sixteen years of experience in public and private schools. A published author, she has been a writer and an editor for more than ten years. She is a founder of the San Diego Book Awards and a judge of its Unpublished Manuscript Contest.
Robert Goodman was a college and adult school teacher, an urban planner, and a technical writer before he founded Silvercat Publications in 1988. Since then he has authored, edited, or published numerous books, articles, training materials, catalogs, and promotional literature. He is on the faculty of the La Jolla Writers Conference and Publishers Marketing Associations Publishing University and the president of the San Diego Publishers Alliance.